Ambition

June 2010... few hours visit to Kolkata on the way back to Bangalore.

It was there proudly put up on a wall by a proud father for his equally so proud son.

This painting was done on a big paper, framed nicely and was showcased in a huge drawing room. But if you ask me it’s just a waste of talent. I could see very well that the kid (my nephew) does have a talent if he has created this on his own. I doubt that it was entirely his art as the proud father told me later that he had a tutor (best in the town) for their children to teach them art. But nevertheless, it was the kid’s hard work and was surely showing on his beaming face, when I told him that the painting is just beautiful.

When I say waste, I may sound rude and may be a bit rebellious… but as a kid I have been through the same and I know so many others, who could not agree more. I was never encouraged to take painting or for that matter any form of art, seriously. It was always a part of my personality but just as a hobby. I do not know and so I don’t speak for my nephew, but I had an undying craving to be creative. So much that I used to help my brother in his craft work. I remember that I used to convert his assignement's B/W Xeroxed pics into colour pics with my 'magic' crayons and it used to feel like an achievement.

When I saw that even though the painting is boastingly put up, the parents actually tried to sideline it…may be to avoid a seed of false hope. All I could hear them talking was about engineering entrance, kid’s coaching classes and even though the kid has practically no time to even look at his watch, his father is not really happy about his preparation. There is so much pressure on kids today to become something in life that unknowingly children get manipulated to think in those lines only. I have nothing against the education, but with the system that provokes an ambition that may not have been mine to achieve in the first place.

Today when people tell me that I should have taken my hobby more seriously, all I remember is of Chennari aunty. She had come to visit us during my med-prep days and had told my mum that why do I need to do medical when I can create magic on paper. I don’t know if I can but that is what I want to do. Today I work just to support myself and I paint because I know that colours do have a story to tell.

If I were that painting I would have been…well really sad!!

I have tried to recreate the image from my memory as a dedication to the beautiful painting I saw and the artist I could not see. May one day the people around that painting, would see the real moments and story behind the painting too.

p.s. I have realized that Canvas is not meant for water colour and am really missing the flow of colours on a sheet of paper.

The Camel Story

Ok so here we go again…been long that i have written anything at all…

So what’s the story behind this one? Flashback time…

Its not actually an original painting…the original was long back when I was in school, probably in 8^th I guess and I tried to paint the same picture in water colour…wasn’t a bad idea actually but somehow it did not work out. Those days we used to buy chart sheets for our school projects and cut into quarters and make a greetings card. I used to make cards for everyone…and if they still have them, may be one day I can ask them to return it back so that I have a nice collection of my childhood memories.

So half sheet of chart paper, a calendar in my hands and I was looking forward to see the sheet of paper up on a wall.

Looking at the image on the calendar, I thought its simple coz I don’t need to make the face of a man…Even today I really am terrible with man’s face…I can go on and on about a women’s face…its cut, flow, beauty…but I really am terrible at sketching men faces. So initially I thought this was a nice image to copy as I don’t have to work on a face…sounds simple…but there is just one problem with water colour…a small mistake and its all gone.

So I was really precise about the right flow and texture of the sky. In my sketch the Camel was almost perfect the man was almost perfect…but in colour, the sky was over soon and then was the trouble…the dark silhouette…the sky was dry and I dipped the brush in black…

Well almost there, was the thought in my head…and then with a shaky stroke I made the first mistake…and camel’s legs came a lot closer than they were suppose to be…ok so my camel bichara had polio..but then there was no stopping… I tried to do something to save my camel but there was no rescue… and then I was just not happy with the transparency I wanted in the man’s dhoti…so my man was fat ghaghra-pant clad male at the end of the day.

Painting was finished but I wasn’t happy and I know my mum could judge that too as it never got a chance to be pasted on a thermocol sheet and put up on a wall.

But somehow all theses years the image was stuck in my head for the very simple reason that it was easily achievable and I still could not do it. When I started Oil painting couple of months back I thought why not this…I was surfing images on net and it just flashed on my face. I know it actually isn’t something to do with oil…its way too simple and I really don’t like that I cant get a flow in colours….when yellow and red just blend in itself to become that glow of orange!!!

Not a great painting but it’s a piece of my memory and so here it is…out in open so that I can share a small part of my childhood.